In future in Los Angeles, only the worst will be stomped on

EARLIER this year Ray Peavy, then head of Los Angeles County's homicide squad, was asked what should be done about gangs. “The same thing you do about cockroaches or insects,” he replied. It's a good comparison, although not in the way Mr Peavy intended. The history of Los Angeles is full of bold declarations of war, none of which has dislodged the city from its undisputed status as the gang capital of America. As anybody who has suffered the critters knows, it is almost impossible to get rid of cockroaches.

For the past few months, though, the city's cops have followed a different, more promising, strategy. First, they named 11 gangs that they would target. This tactic has been resisted in the past, since to name a gang is to glorify it and to admit that previous efforts to eradicate it have failed. The cops even produced a map showing gang territories. As a result, potential homebuyers can now look up not just the local school results but also whether they are moving into the turf of Mara Salvatrucha or the Rollin' 60's Neighbourhood Crips.

The second difference is that, Mr Peavy aside, the cops have not promised to stamp out any gangs, even the targeted ones. “They can exist,” says William Bratton, the head of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), “but they must behave.” A gang that murders people will be harried by civil injunctions and crackdowns on petty probation violations. A gang that avoids extravagant violence—as many do—will be left alone, more or less.

So far the strategy appears to be working. Between the start of January and the end of June, the LAPD counted 102 gang murders; by the same point last year there had been 143. Most encouragingly, crime has declined in most of the precincts where the targeted gangs are based. The only area that saw more gang crime was the San Fernando Valley, where only one gang has been harried.

Whether this benign trend continues is another matter. The police have done a terrific job of hounding the vicious 204th Street gang, says Najee Ali, a former member of the Crips. But eventually the officers will move on to deal with other miscreants. When (and it is when, not if) the gang recovers, will it have learned the lesson that the police are trying to teach it?